Waseche's brow puckered judicially:
"Yes—we would. Yo' see, son, it's like this: We got mo' dawgs than is needful fo' a two-man outfit. If we was down to six dawgs, or even seven, an' one sled, an' they was weak or stahvin, then we could bust a fish cache—but to feed twenty-one dawgs—that ain't right. Likewise with ouah own grub—a man's supposed to take from anotheh man's cache jest so much as is needful fo' life; that is, what will get him to the neahest camp—not an ounce mo'. This is the unwritten law of the Nawth. An' a good law. Men's lives is staked on a cache—an' that's why when, onct in a while, a man's caught robbin' a cache—takin' mo'n what's needful fo' life, they ain't much time wasted. He gets—what's comin' to him."
The dogs had licked up the last crumbs of their scant ration and, burrowing into the snow, wrapped themselves snugly in their thick, bushy tails. Old Boris and Slasher dug their beds in the side of the mound near where Connie had spread his robes. The boy watched them idly as they threw the hard, dry snow behind them in volleys, and long after the other dogs had curled up for the night, the sound of old Boris' claws rasping at the flinty snow could be heard at the fireside.
"Boris is digging some bed!" exclaimed the boy, as he glanced toward the tunnel from which emerged spurts of sand-like snow.
"He ain't diggin' no bed," answered Waseche. "He smells somethin'." Even as he spoke the snow ceased to fly, and seemingly from the depths of the earth, came the sound of a muffled bark. Instantly Slasher was on his feet growling and snarling into the tunnel from which the voice of old Boris could be heard in a perfect bedlam of barking.
"Oh! It's a cave! A cave!" cried Connie, pushing aside the growling wolf-dog. "Maybe it's the cache!"
Waseche Bill finished twisting a spruce twig torch. He shook his head dubiously:
"Come heah, Boris!" he called, sharply, "come out of that!" The old dog appeared, barking joyously over his discovery. Waseche Bill lighted his torch at the fire, and pushing it before him, wriggled into the opening. After what, to the waiting boy, seemed an age, the man's head appeared at the entrance, and he pulled himself clear.
"What is it?" inquired the impatient boy. "What did you find?"
The man regarded him gravely for a moment, and then answered, speaking slowly: